Olympias
Page 32
considers him a god of the underworld and implies that his rites related mainly to reconciliation of the dead, whereas Cook 1965: 2.1091–60 associates the cult with purification of blood guilt and perhaps fertility.
48 On this, see Mortensen 1997: 79.
49 Plutarch says that the use of snakes in this manner “astonished (or terrified)”
the men. As Mortensen 1997: 73 points out, this probably means that it was a practice unfamiliar to them.
50 Carney 1987a: 41, n. 16; O’Brien 1992: 13; argued at length by Mortensen 1997: 76–7, especially n. 177; Dillon 2002: 144.
180 Notes
51 Carney 1987a: 41, n. 16; Mortensen 1997: 82–3. She cites Lucian Alex. 7 on the sale of tame snakes in the Pella market place. See also Cic. De Div. 2.135
and above.
52 Other than Plutarch, there is only the highly dubious statement of Justin (9.7.13) that Olympias dedicated to Apollo the sword of Philip’s assassin, for secrecy’s sake, under the name Myrtale, which she had borne as a little girl.
Granted that, as the daughter of a king, her name was well known, this would hardly have constituted concealment.
53 Maxwell-Stuart 1972: 151.
54 Pliny ( NH 36.4.25) mentions statues of Aphrodite and Pothos and cult for them at Samothrace in his own day. Mortensen 1997: 27 rejects the idea that the cult existed earlier, considers it likely that the statue in question was not that of Aphrodite but the Great Mother, and so concludes that Olympias’
name-change cannot have been associated with Aphrodite at Samothrace. In fact, the evidence for Aphrodite at Samothrace, like that for her role at Dodona, is of a later date. Moreover, Cole 1984: 86 notes that elsewhere the Samothracian gods were worshiped in concert with Aphrodite.
55 Heckel 1981b: 83–4.
56 Contra Heckel 1981b: 84, who believes that myrtle was associated with fertility rites in general. As to whether one may consider the Samothrace cult a fertility rite, see below.
57 Maxwell-Stuart 1972: 155–6.
58 Mortensen 1997: 26–7 denies any association of the cult with myrtle, marriage or fertility, in this period.
59 Mortensen 1997: 27–9.
60 Maxwell-Stuart 1972: 145–7, 159–61.
61 Maxwell-Stuart 1972 discusses the growing association of the plant with the Eleusinian mysteries, but implies that it may also have symbolized the general power of life (sexuality) and eternal life, not necessarily in association with the Eleusinian mysteries in particular. Certainly wreaths of myrtle appear in male and female burials in Macedonia, including those in the Great Tumulus at Vergina (Carney 1991a: 21).
62 See discussion in Chapter 1.
63 Cole 1984: 17, n. 127 implausibly rejects it as a literary cliché based on the need to explain how the supposedly secluded Athenian woman could meet a man. Quite apart from the assumption that Macedonian/Molossian behavior modeled Athenian, the dedications of elite women at panhellenic sites demonstrates that there is nothing implausible in the idea of Olympias’ attendance at the shrine. The cliché and embroidery relate to the erotic part of the story.
64 Cole 1984: 40.
65 See Lane Fox 1973: 44; Cole 1984: 16–17; and discussion in Chapter 1.
Mortensen 1997: 19–22 argues that Argead patronage began a few years earlier, in the reign of Philip’s brother Perdiccas III, although surmising that Philip may have completed his brother’s projects. For our purposes, the relevant point is that this was a shrine recently developed under Argead patronage.
66 Mortensen 1997: 24.
67 Cole 1984: 21, 39–40. Mortensen 1997: 24, n. 147 argues that FGrH 70 F 120
does not prove that the festival was held before Hellenistic times, but, of course, nor does it mean that it was not. See, however, Clinton 2003: 50–78, especially 67–8.
68 As Mortensen 1997: 23 observes, the sanctuary was difficult to reach, and even in later periods was largely patronized by those from the northern Aegean area and sailors.
Notes 181
69 See Chapter 1. Molossia had been landlocked until comparatively recent times.
70 Mortensen 1997: 23 points to the discrepancy between the benefits of the cult and Molossian experience. On the nature of the cult’s benefits, see Cole 1984: 6; Burkert 1985: 284. While Cole believes that the cult promised eternal salvation, Burkert points out that there was no mention of such a possibility.
71 See discussions in Cole 1984: 1–6, 26–37; Burkert 1985: 281–5; Clinton 2003; Schachter 2003. The gods of the sanctuary are called simply theoi (gods) or theoi megaloi (Great Gods). Their number, sex, and identity are not known.
Though some writers connect the Cabiri to Samothrace, others do not, and their name appears on no inscription at Samothrace.
72 On ordinary female initiates, see Cole 1984: 42. No Greek female epoptai (those who had achieved the highest grade of initiation) are known (Cole 1984: 46). In the Hellenistic period, a woman from Miletus dedicated a large building with three rooms (Cole 1984: 21) and Arsinoe, probably during the period of her marriage to Lysimachus, then ruler of Macedonia, dedicated a huge eponymous structure at Samothrace (see Carney 1994a: 125, n. 7 for references and discussion).
73 Cole 1984: 19 implausibly prefers the possibility of Philip Arrhidaeus to Olympias. His probable absence in Asia and his mental limitations make him an unlikely choice for building supervisor (see further Carney 2001). Olympias, an initiate, known to have been given great wealth by Alexander and to have made expensive dedications, seems a more likely choice, even for the period after her return to Molossia. Some non-royal Macedonian may have supervised on Alexander’s behalf.
74 See references in Cole 1984: 11, n. 148; Carney 2001: 70, n. 35. Since the names of both kings appear on the inscription, it presumably predates Olympias’ control of her grandson.
75 Macurdy 1932a: 24 (followed by Heckel 1981b: 84–5), basing her supposition on Plutarch’s statement ( Alex. 3.8) that Philip heard about the birth of their son the same day he heard of his Olympic victory.
76 Some scholars date the wedding to October 357: Beloch 1922–: 68; Prestianni-Giallombardo 1976–7: 96, n. 46; Green 1991: 30. Hatzopoulos 1982b: 37–42
suggests that the wedding took place in concert with the Macedonian festival of Zeus Olympius, a new year festival held every October. Hatzopoulos’
argument depends on the belief that the wedding of Olympias’ daughter to Alexander of Molossia was tied to the same festival. There are some difficulties with his argument (see discussion in Mortensen 1997: 32–4; Le Bohec-Bouhet 2002: 44–5). Wedding festivals for major marriage alliances became the norm in the Hellenistic period, based on the model of the wedding of Olympias’
daughter (Carney 2000c: 203–7); Hatzopoulos’ argument assumes that the model predated the wedding of Cleopatra. Mortensen 1997: 34 hypothesizes that Aegae was the traditional place not only for royal funerals but for royal weddings.
77 Mortensen 1997: 31 argues that the occasion for a name-change should be something important in her life. She also wonders (1997: 47, n. 192) whether being given one’s name from a horse race, even a famous one, might be less than complimentary. More to the point, the victory in the horse race does not directly relate to Olympias, whereas her wedding and piety to Zeus did.
Certainly, as she notes (1997: 35) associating this name-change with Olympias’
wedding better explains the fact that our sources call her by no other name than does attaching it to an event that happened several years after her marriage.
78 Anth. Gr. 14.114. Fredricksmeyer 2003: 265, n. 56 accepts this obscure oracle as genuine but see also Kaiser-Raiss 1984: 40.
182 Notes
79 I follow Fredricksmeyer 1966: 179–81 in the reading and translation of this text. He, however, does not suggest, as I do, that Olympias’ possession of a slave who performs such duties must mean that she had some sort of role, most likely supervisory, in all the sacrifices, not just those she personally performs.
This pa
rticular letter is especially likely to be genuine since it fills no propaganda need, is so matter-of-fact in tone, and presents Olympias in a conventional role. Its authenticity should therefore be accepted: see Berve 1926: 312.
See contra Hamilton 1969: 5; Gagé 1975: 7. As we have seen, any letter in sources should be treated with suspicion, but this one deserves less than most.
80 Pausanias (1.23.4) locates the Athenian cult on the Acropolis.
81 Berve 1926: 286 suggests that she made the offering as a response to Alexander’s illness in Cilicia.
82 Dillon 2002: 27, for instance, notes that at the Asclepieion in Athens female dedicators outnumber male, contrary to the situation in the majority of cults.
He argues (2002: 31) that women, since they were more often at medical risk than men, tended to focus more than men on healing deities.
83 Dillon 2002: 14 believes that women were the main dedicators to kourotrophic (child-nourishing) deities.
84 Dillon 2002: 18 notes that female dedications at Athenian sanctuaries ceased to be outside but rather were placed within temples and took on “a standard form, largely of phialai . . . jewellery and the like.” Olympias’ phiale was likely of either silver or gold. Dillon notes that of the ten silver phialai dedicated at the Erechtheion, eight were dedicated by women. It was a pattern that continued: Phthia, wife of Demetrius II, dedicated a phiale to Apollo at Delos ( ID 407.20).
85 Dillon 2002: 18. Of course, women sometimes poured their own libations and men sometimes dedicated phialai.
86 Her name is restored to the inscription in line 5: λ[υµπι]δι. Her son also sent her plunder after Granicus ( FGrH 151 F 1) and quite possibly on other occasions unknown to us.
87 Eux. 19 says that he allowed her to dedicate it. Later, discussing her objections to the Athenian dedication at Dodona, he refers to “those who had come from her” (envoys) but there is no suggestion of envoys in terms of the phiale.
88 Kosmetatou 2004: 80 seems to suggest that Olympias’ Delphic donation was done by proxy.
89 Instead of returning to Molossia by land, over mountain passes, she could have traveled largely by sea, making stops along the way at Athens and Delphi.
90 See discussion of use of slaves in the household of Alexander in Scholl 1987.
91 Since few military items were initially found in the antechamber, almost all on the threshold of the door to the male burial, Andronicos (1984: 179) the original excavator, suggested that these items belonged to the male. Subsequent work has discovered much more military equipment (including, for instance, a cuirass and apparently an entire panoply), distributed throughout the antechamber (Drogou et al. 1996: 57, 107–13; Adam-Veleni 2004: 53). One can no longer plausibly ascribe the martial paraphernalia in the antechamber to the male. See further Carney 2004.
92 Although the debate on the identity of the occupants of Tomb II continues (see Carney 1991a: 1–26 for an overview, with particular reference to the female burial), recent work (Bartsiokas 2000: 511–14; Themelis and Touratsoglou 1997; Palagia 2000) adds decisive support to the already compelling arguments of Borza (1987: 105–21), that the occupants were Philip Arrhidaeus and Adea Eurydice.
93 The Greek orgiasmos means the celebration of orgia. Orgia, according to LSJ, can refer to secret rites or worship (perhaps to the mystery religions, that is to
Notes 183
say those requiring initiation) or to general rites or worship. English translations of this passage which employ terms like “orgiastic” (Scott-Kilvert 1973: 253) or “orgies” (Perrin 1919, 1958: 227; Asirvatham 2001: 96) deceive and confuse their readers. Whereas the Greek term (and as we shall see Dionysiac practice itself) could refer to festivals at which indiscriminate sexual activity occurred and to those in which it did not, the English terms explicitly indicate sexual activity. In this passage, Plutarch clearly reacts against emotional excess in religion but it is unlikely (see below) that he imagines sexual excess in this context.
94 Macedonian female worshipers of Dionysus: see Dillon 202: 147 and below.
95 Both Perrin 1919, 1958: 229 and Asirvatham 2001: 97 translate ηλ ω as
“affect.” LSJ offer this as one of the meanings of the verb, but it is probably not the best translation of the term in the context of this passage. The Greek term involves the idea of competition and is particularly appropriate in the light of Plutarch’s stress on excess, zealousness. The derivative English term,
“zealot,” conveys some of this sense. Asirvatham 2001: 97–8, especially n. 12, favors “affect” because the author sees Plutarch as picturing Olympias
“inauthentic” in these actions as a result of their “intentionality” and later speaks of them as “a calculated effort to play on the superstition of others.”
(Asirvatham’s discussion of this point makes it difficult to determine whether the actual Olympias or merely Plutarch’s construct is the one who is manipulative.) Asirvatham insists (2001: 97) that “intentionality seems incompatible with true inspiration.” This view seems unreasonable: Plutarch describes a ritual that involves preparation (snakes, sacred baskets, groups of women, ivy) yet this preparation or organization need not have prevented inspiration.
96 Mortensen 1997: 75 observes that Plutarch describes a public procession but not one involving a retreat to the mountains.
97 O’Brien 1992: 13; Mortensen 1997: 76.
98 Bremmer 1984: 284–5; Dillon 2002: 147 contra Kraemer 1979: 31.
99 On the role of Dionysus in Macedonia, see Baege 1913: 79–83; Fredricksmeyer 1966 and 2003: 264–5; Goukowsky 1981: 2.8–9; O’Brien 1992: 14–16; Ginouvès 1994: 113–14; Baynham 2000: 258–9.
100 For an overview of Dionysiac cult, see Burkert 1985: 161–7. See also Cole 1980, 1993a, and 1993b; Henrichs 1982.
101 See Henrichs 1978: 121–60; Kraemer 1979: 55–80; Blundell 1995: 165–9; Dillon 2002: 139–52.
102 At Pella, in the House of Dionysus, a floor mosaic of Dionysus on a panther; the famous Derveni krater (see Themelis and Touratsoglou 1997). At Dion, a sanctuary to Dionysus stood (unsurprisingly) near the Hellenistic theater and Pella also had a Dionysus cult (Ginouvès 1994: 114).
103 In Tomb II, in the main chamber: one of the ivory and gold couches, typical of couch decoration in that period, had themes related to both Dionysus and banqueting (Drogou et al. 1996: 99), twin kalyxes with a Silenus head on the interior base, two silver pitchers with a Silenus head at the base of the handle, a lantern with a Pan head at the handle base (Andronicos 1984: 150–3, 162–5).
Tomb III also contained an ivory and gold couch decorated with figures related to Dionysiac cult (Drogou et al. 1996:105), as well as silver cups with heads of Pan.
104 Dillon 2002: 147 discusses a play of Aeschylus about Macedonian female Dionysiacs.
105 On Alexander and Dionysus, see Edmunds 1971: 376–8; Goukowsky 1981: 2; Bosworth 1996a: 119–23 and 1996b: 140–66; Fredricksmeyer 2003: 264–5.
Philip’s relationship to Dionysus (O’Brien 1992: 14) seems tied to drinking (implied even in his coinage), true of many Macedonians. Most of the
184 Notes
Dionysiac objects from tombs are connected to the symposia, possibly not only because Dionysus was a god of wine but because of his connections to the afterlife (see below).
106 Blundell 1995: 165–6.
107 Some scholars believe that the worship of Dionysus as a wine god was an entirely male pursuit (Bremmer 1984: 270), but see Henrichs 1978: 159 and 1982: 139–40; Blundell 1995: 166; Dillon 2002: 148. See Chapter 1, n. 23 for the possibility that royal Macedonian women attended drinking parties and that royal Molossian women may have.
108 Henrichs 1982: 148; Blundell 1995: 166, 168 notes that sources do not specifically mention the presence of women in terms of drinking aspects of spring festivals to Dionysus in Athens, but this is the same conundrum as female attendance at Attic drama during Dionysiac festivals. She does think it likely that women as well as men attended rural wine festivals.
100 Zeitlin 1982, followed by Blundell 1995: 169; Dillon 2002: 147. As Blundell comments, this phenomenon helps to explain the strange combination of tolerance of the cult by men but also male suspicion or hostility to it.
111 Blundell 1995: 166–7 notes that this form of Dionysiac cult is attested in only some regions of Greece.
112 Dillon 2002: 144.
113 As Blundell 1995: 166 notes, this term, derived from mania (madness), had
“derogatory connotations,” implying male disapproval.
114 Blundell 1995: 168.
115 Blundell 1995: 168; Cole 1993a. The evidence for these civic festivals is Hellenistic; one could assume that the cult became less personal and ecstatic over time or one could conclude (my preference) that classical evidence like the Bacchae is shaped by the needs of art and interest in myth, and that Hellenistic documentary evidence tells us more about real cults, evidence probably meaningful for real practice even at an earlier period.
116 Cole 1980: 230; Kraemer 1992: 38–9.
117 Kraemer 1979: 66 and 1992: 41.
118 Dillon 2002: 153–4 concludes women may have been less involved in these rites, partly because he seems to regard them as entirely separate from Dionysus. See Laks and Most 1997 for discussion of the Orphic papyrus found in the remnants of the funerary pyre placed over Derveni A.
119 Cole 1980, 1993b, and 2003. Kraemer 1992: 39–40 pictures these cults as separate to a degree that Cole 1980 does not, although she does consider the possibility of overlap.
120 Cole 2003: 201 notes that tags, badges, and greetings related to the cult found in burials are concentrated in Macedonia though they appear elsewhere as well.
121 Kraemer 1979: 59; Bremmer 1984: 267–9; Blundell 1995: 167–8.
122 Henrichs 1978: 133–48: one woman was both leader of maenads and public priestess of Dionysus. Some types of Dionysiac cult were more periodic than others.